When I was in security, a lot of times people thought things were up for negotiation or compromise. I did pubs, I did corporate sites and facilities management... you gotta follow the rules. And when you work in security your job is to be the guy who explains the rules to people because the bosses have better things to do than have the same conversations with different (and some times the same) people several times a day every day.

Now "the rules" might mean "the law" or "our licensing requirements" or it might just be "this is the way the client wants it". None of that is able to be debated or compromised on. You just don't have a choice on the matter... your boss or client doesn't want to hear "well the guy made a good point and I realised your policy is stupid so I let him go do what he wanted to do even though it's precisely what you told me not to let happen".

So you'd get guys show up to the pub without appropriate footwear, and they'll want to negotiate "well what if we just sit down some where to the side and no one will notice us?" but that doesn't work. You'd get contractors show up at the corporate site wanting to work on the infrastructure without the proper authorisation and safe work methods statements being provided, and that doesn't work either. Generally I always considered that my job was to help people out and if there was a problem try to resolve it so that things could get done... but there was only one way that could happen. AKA you gotta go through the correct procedure, arguing about it is just going to take longer and reduce your chances of ending up getting what you want. Not to mention increase your chances of being dragged out of the building and put on your arse in the street.

So anyway, training is in some ways similar and in some ways not so similar.

In a way... there's "one" way that you're going to drop any excess weight that you're carrying and improve your body composition. That's through an appropriate training program, and a suitable intake to support your goal weight and goal body condition on that program.

So... you've got to do something that's actually appropriate to your goal. That's not negotiable, but with that said there are a number of ways you can put your program together and there's room to compromise in some areas.

Still, energy intake must be appropriate. You can't get around this, but you can negotiate as follows. For some people it's "you've either gotta do more, or eat less", but more often in my experience the negotiation is "you've gotta eat more or cut back on the training a little".

How could that be though? People are supposed to "move more, eat less" aren't they?

Sure. But there's a law of diminishing returns and if you're not properly fueled you won't see continued results. And the more you do, the more fuel you require. Now if you have a healthy appetite that's fine, but if you are highly active, participating in multiple forms of training, sometimes multiple sessions per day... you can't think like a person "on a diet" to lose weight. You need to fuel up like an athlete.

This is a message you don't hear very often because not many people in the business or in the community seem to understand it. You don't force results by slashing calories ever lower and lower while pushing amount and intensity of exercise ever higher and higher. That's a recipe for absolute certain catastrophe.

So, that stuff is not negotiable, but there's still a variety of ways you can get into tremendous shape. If you're prepared to do the minimum that is required, there's less room for compromise on the training program but you can be highly successful by persisting with the right strategy. If you're enthusiastic about participating in a variety of activities very often, under eating is about the only way you could go wrong.